A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Events in History at the Time the Play Was Written

THE PYRAMUS AND THISBE MYTH According to mythology, Pyramus was a young Babylonian youth in love with his neighbor, Thisbe. Because their parents forbade their marriage, they had to communicate with each other through a wall that separated their properties. One night they agreed to hold a clandestine meeting at the mulberry tree near the tomb of Ninus. Thisbe, the first to arrive, was frightened away by a lion whose bloody jaws bore the remains of a fresh kill. As she fled, however, she dropped her veil, and it was subsequently shredded by the lion. When Pyramus arrived to find Thisbe's forn veil stained with blood, he was convinced that she had been killed. The heartbroken young man then took his own life with his sword. Thisbe returned to find her dead lover and killed herself with the same sword. Because their blood stained the nearby mulberry tree, its fruit was changed from white to crimson.

by William Shakespeare

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Events in History at the Time the Play Was Written

Elizabeth I. From her ascent to the throne in 1558 to her death in 1603, Queen Elizabeth I ruled England with a political genius that few monarchs before her had possessed. Although she has been described as difficult, pompous, and strong-willed, Elizabeth identified herself wholly with her nation. Unmarried, she used her single status to play her suitors off one another and do her bidding. Eventually Elizabeth would confess that England was her only spouse. She became totally identified with the nation and left it independent and united, though she had no heirs. Many scholars interpret Oberon's mention of a "fair vestal throned by the west" (Midsummer Night's Dream, 2.1.158) as a direct reference to the virgin queen. Bottom's waking speech discusses the enticing yet impossible notion of possessing such a figure. For the population of England, Elizabeth was the ultimate, unattainable love.

Elizabeth's court was not without its social intrigue, however. During her reign, royal patronage (support for select individuals favored by the queen) reached new heights. Elizabeth transformed local noblemen and gentry into advisors known as courtiers who depended on her favor to prosper. Still, she won an allegiance that few monarchs have equaled. This quality, combined with her lengthy rule, made her one of the century's leading figures. In acknowledgement of her rate, the second half of the 1500s came to be known as the Elizabethan Age.

Shakespeare's own company was not supported by the Elizabethan court but was privately employed. It still seems to have labored under certain obligations to the court, however, including the production of two new plays each year-a comedy and a tragedy (or historical play).

Elizabethan drama. Both comedy and tragedy were composed of a mixture of classical and medieval traditions. Developed from earlier Latin models, comedies of the Elizabethan era involved the lives of noblemen, and their often romantic plots centered around confusion over love. Typically, actors representing the higher classes spoke in verse, while characters of a lower class had prose speeches, a method used in A Midsummer Night's Dream. While the fairy nobles and the Athenian court members all speak in blank verse in the drama, the mechanicals speak only in prose.

Reception of the play. It is likely that A Midsummer Night's Dream was first performed as a private production for nobility and occasionally performed publicly by Shakespeare's company, Lord Chamberlain's Men. Aside from this, little is known, as is true of most dramatic productions prior to the Commonwealth period that began in 1648. The existence of a separately published work or spin-off entitled "The Merry Conceited Humours of Bottom the Weaver," however, indicates that the play was originally well received. A Midsummer Night's Dream has since then taken its place as one of Shakespeare's unfailingly successful plays. The popular comedy has been regularly staged over the years.

Marriage. Elizabethans, confined by gender (in the case of women) as well as class expectations, did not exercise much control in marriage. That Queen Elizabeth defied Parliament and public opinion by refusing to marry and bear children set her apart from most Englishwomen. She shocked the world with her statement that "in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin" (Elizabeth I in Jones, p. 88). It would be some time, in fact, before the general public came to

terms with her defiance of so-called female responsibilities.

The concept of marital duty ran deep throughout Elizabethan society. It taught that a man, according to the edict of God, should care for his wife as if she were a part of his own flesh; she, in turn, should consent to the rule of her husband. Furthermore, love for a spouse could only be earned through the proper enacting of one's role. Passion, thought to render the mind senseless, was regarded as an emotion to be avoided and suppressed. Hermia's father rebukes Lysander for an unearned and therefore false profession of love for his daughter, stating, "Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung / With feigning voice verses of feigning love" (Midsummer Night's Dream, 1.1.30-1).

As in ancient Athens when the play is set, marriage in Shakespeare's day was a social relationship involving the community as well as the couple. It was rarely desirable to marry out of love for one's partner. Instead, families arranged marriages for their children, paying particular attention to matters of age, social rank, and, of course, wealth. Both the family name and the accumulation of property depended on a proper union. The couple, as adults, willingly recognized their role in this social institution. When Hermia denies her union with Demetrius in A Midsummer Night's Dream, she jeopardizes the future of her entire family. Therefore, her father's anger is not entirely unwarranted. Until her marriage, a female child in Shakespeare's day lived according to a code of obedience to the male head of the household. When, in the play's setting of ancient Athens,

Hermia's father remarks that her acceptance of his wishes is "due to [him]," he is also stating a fact of Elizabethan society (Midsummer Night's Dream, 1.1.36).

In the end, though, Hermia does win the right to marry the husband of her choice. Because Queen Elizabeth broke social protocol by refusing to marry, certain deviations from the standard became more accepted during her time. The queen's independence perhaps inspired Shakespeare to have Hermia break with the past and attain a partner of her own choosing. These social issues-the unfairness of forced marriages and the idea of permitting young people to select their own mates-were tackled in other plays of the era, too, such as The Miseries of Inforst Manage, by George Wilkins.

Dream study in sixteenth-century Europe. In sixteenth-century England, there was a wealth of books on the topic of dreams. The most notable of these was Oneirocritica by a scholar named Artemidorus. He suggested that a dream might have a number of different meanings depending on the circumstances of the dream and the dreamer's life. Artemidorus thus introduced the idea that a dream had to be interpreted, a belief that contrasted with earlier theories that a dream was by nature either good or evil. Another important work, the Dream Book of Daniel, was written by an unknown author. Printed in English in 1542, this book, like others of the era, focused on the difference between divine and devilish dreams. Going further, the scholar Macrobius attempted to classify dreams, paying most attention to those that led to higher knowledge or special insights. Church leaders also focused on "higher" dreams.

In Shakespeare's play, the dream world is a transforming place, from which the dreamers return greatly changed and more in harmony with their world. Their dreams lead them toward an enlightenment of sorts, perhaps to a greater self-knowledge. This use of dreams in the play reflects the great degree to which dream study captured the popular English mind in the 1500s. In fact, the folk calendar included a few holidays related to prophecy and dreams. Among them was Midsummer Eve and Day (June 23-24), a holiday also associated with fairies, love, and madness. Midsummer Eve was sacred to lovers, who celebrated the holiday by dancing around bonfires, calling on spirits to aid them in matters of love, and trying in various ways to divine who their future mates might be. At noon on June 23, for example, a maiden might take a mirror to a water well and reflect the sun's rays into the water. Such a maiden would be careful not to speak because that would break the spell. In a few minutes, the image of her future mate was supposed to appear.